(34-35) COMMUNITY OF MADRID DOCUMENTATION CENTRE. 1994-2002.

From the outset of this project, the
powerful and ominous open spaces of the former El Aguila brewery, by then
unknown to the public, were the driving force for the arrangement of the
different activities. This was carried out through the construction of voids,
interfaces and expansions of surfaces as part of an effort to visualise an
exterior space which modernism had regarded as a mere void. The space between
the buildings has thus become the defining element, upgrading multiple
itineraries, planes of activity and information and changing the linear nature
of the complex as a whole by establishing invisible links between the different
constructions with their industrial scale and materials.The Madrid Regional Government
Archives and Library in the former El Águila brewery is a centre for the
preservation, custody and dissemination of the Region’s historic documentary
heritage, ultimately aimed at ensuring the transparency of administrative
processes and citizen’s rights. The construction, an extension of the Paseo del
Prado cultural axis, is part of the political desire to open Madrid to the south
and the cultural desire to safeguard the remains of the city’s historic
industrial heritage.